Mother convicted in cold case inquiry into newborn's 2006 death gets 5 years in prison

The District Court in Arnhem sentenced 41-year-old Margot H. to 5 years in prison on Wednesday after finding her guilty of killing her baby in January 2006. In issuing its verdict, the court said the woman used violence to take the life of Sem Vijverberg just 12 hours after he was born, and then leaving the body in a lake in her home place of Doetinchem, the court ruled.

“You cannot imagine a more gruesome and sadder start to a human life,” said the lead judge presiding over the trial, who read the verdict aloud in court. The boy was given his name by the children who found the newborn's body in a frozen section of marshy reads along the shore.

H. was arrested in September 2022 after police received a tip due to extensive media attention for the cold case. DNA research showed that H. was the boy’s biological mother. The mother said during the trial two weeks ago that she has no memory of the pregnancy nor the birth of the boy. The court does not believe that she genuinely suffers from memory loss, saying they instead believe it is "simulated memory loss.”

The suspect did not visibly show emotion when hearing the verdict. Her lawyers, Petra Breukink and Brigitte Roodveldt announced straight after the verdict that they are going to appeal the decision. "It is a verdict based on assumptions," they responded. "You cannot 'fill in' what happened." According to her lawyers, H. reacted in bewilderment and shock after the verdict.

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) had recommended four years in prison for a conviction of manslaughter. According to the OM, there are no realistic alternative scenarios that led to the baby’s death. The court agreed with this statement.

The court gave H. a harsher punishment because the judges felt that the recommendation of four years did not do justice to the severity of the crime. The court did not consider it necessary to reduce the period of incarceration even though it was almost 19 years ago.

"It is the defendant's own fault that she is only now having to experience the consequences of her actions," the verdict said. "The evidence against the woman is begging for a statement from her, but this was not forthcoming."

During the court case, it became clear that H. had canceled meetings with the police for 10 years for reasons that were not always valid. She once told the police she was in quarantine when she was actually still going to work.

This is partly why the court said her varying statements were unreliable and is also the reason that the court does not believe that she suffers from memory loss. "It seems that she already knew that she was Sem's mother and that she wanted to avoid talking about this with the police."